Plant development can be altered, according to the present invention, by transforming a plant with a genetic construct that includes regulatory elements and structural genes capable of acting in a cascading fashion to produce a reversible effect on a plant phenotype. A suitable construct includes a tissue specific promoter, a dominant negative gene, and a nucleotide sequence encoding a transcriptional activator linked to a DNA binding protein. In particular, the present invention relates to the use of a DAM-methylase gene as a dominant negative gene and an anther-specific promoter to produce transgenic plants that are reversibly male-sterile.
There is a need for a reversible genetic system for producing male sterile plants, in particular for autogamous plants. Production of hybrid seed for commercial sale is a large and important industry. Hybrid plants grown from hybrid seed benefit from the heterotic effects of crossing two genetically distinct breeding lines. The commercially desirable agronomic performance of hybrid offspring is superior to both parents, typically in vigor, yield and uniformity. The better performance of hybrid seed varieties compared to open-pollinated varieties makes the hybrid seed more attractive for farmers to plant and therefore commands a premium price in the market.
In order to produce hybrid seed uncontaminated with self-seed, pollination control methods must be implemented to ensure cross-pollination and to guard against self-pollination. Pollination control mechanisms include mechanical, chemical and genetic means.
A mechanical means for hybrid seed production can be used if the plant of interest has spatially separate male and female flowers or separate male and female plants. For example, a maize plant has pollen-producing male flowers in an inflorescence at the apex of the plant, and female flowers in the axiles of leaves along the stem. Outcrossing of maize is assured by mechanically detasseling the female parent to prevent selfing. Even though detasseling is currently used in hybrid seed production for plants such as maize, the process is labor-intensive and costly, both in terms of the actual detasseling cost and yield loss as a result of detasseling the female parent.
Most major crop plants of interest, however, have both functional male and female organs within the same flower, therefore, emasculation is not a simple procedure. While it is possible to remove by hand the pollen forming organs before pollen is shed, this form of hybrid production is extremely labor intensive and expensive. Seed is produced in this manner only if the value and amount of seed recovered warrants the effort.
A second general means of producing hybrid seed is to use chemicals that kill or block viable pollen formation. These chemicals, termed gametocides, are used to impart a transitory male-sterility. Commercial production of hybrid seed by use of gametocides is limited by the expense and availability of the chemicals and the reliability and length of action of the applications. A serious limitation of gametocides is that they have phytotoxic effects, the severity of which are dependent on genotype. Other limitations include that these chemicals may not be effective for crops with an extended flowering period because new flowers produced may not be affected. Consequently, repeated application of chemicals is required.
Many current commercial hybrid seed production systems for field crops rely on a genetic means of pollination control. Plants that are used as females either fail to make pollen, fail to shed pollen, or produce pollen that is biochemically unable to effect self-fertilization. Plants that are unable to self-fertilize are said to be "self-incompatible" (SI). Difficulties associated with the use of a self-incompatibility system include availability and propagation of the self-incompatible female line, and stability of the self-compatibility. In some instances, self-incompatibility can be overcome chemically, or immature buds can be pollinated by hand before the bio-chemical mechanism that blocks pollen is activated. Self-incompatible systems that can be deactivated are often very vulnerable to stressful climatic conditions that break or reduce the effectiveness of the biochemical block to self-pollination.
Of more widespread interest for commercial seed production are systems of pollen-control-based genetic mechanisms causing male sterility. These systems are of two general types: (a) genic male sterility, which is the failure of pollen formation because of one or more nuclear genes or (b) cytoplasmic-genetic male sterility, commonly referred to as "cytoplasmic male sterility" (CMS), in which pollen formation is blocked or aborted because of an alteration in a cytoplasmic organelle, which generally is a mitochondria.
Although there are hybridization schemes involving the use of CMS, there are limitations to its commercial value. An example of a CMS system, is a specific mutation in the cytoplasmically located mitochondria which can, when in the proper nuclear background, lead to the failure of mature pollen formation. In some instances, the nuclear background can compensate for the cytoplasmic mutation and normal pollen formation occurs. Specific nuclear "restorer genes" allow pollen formation in plants with CMS mitochondria. Generally, the use of CMS for commercial seed production involves the use of three breeding lines: a male-sterile line (female parent), a maintainer line which is isogeneic to the male-sterile line but contains fully functional mitochondria, and a male parent line. The male parent line may carry the specific restorer genes and, hence, is usually designated a "restorer line," which imparts fertility to the hybrid seed.
For crops such as vegetable crops for which seed recovery from the hybrid is unimportant, a CMS system can be used without restoration. For crops for which the fruit or seed of the hybrid is the commercial product, the fertility of the hybrid seed must be restored by specific restorer genes in the male parent or the male-sterile hybrid must be pollinated. Pollination of non-restored hybrids can be achieved by including with hybrids a small percentage of male fertile plants to effect pollination. In most species, the CMS trait is inherited maternally, since all cytoplasmic organelles are inherited from the egg cell only, and this restricts the use of the system.
CMS systems possess limitations that preclude them as a sole solution to production of male sterile plants. For example, one particular CMS type in maize (T-cytoplasm) confers sensitivity to the toxin produced by infection by a particular fungus. Although still used for a number of crops, CMS systems may break down under certain environmental conditions.
Nuclear (genic) sterility can be either dominant or recessive. Dominant sterility can only be used for hybrid seed formation if propagation of the female line is possible (for example, via in vitro clonal propagation). Recessive sterility can be used if sterile and fertile plants are easily discriminated. Commercial utility of genic sterility systems is limited however by the expense of clonal propagation and roguing the female rows of self-fertile plants.
Discovery of genes which would alter plant development would be particularly useful in developing genetic methods to induce male sterility because other currently available methods, including detasseling, CMS and SI, have shortcomings.
A search for methods of altering development in plants by use of genetic methods led to methylase genes of the present invention. Changes in the DNA methylation pattern of specific genes or promoters have accounted for changes in gene expression. Methylation of DNA is a factor in regulation of genes during development of both plants and animals.
Methylation patterns are established by methods such as the use of methyl-sensitive CpG-containing promoters (genes). In general, actively transcribed sequences are under methylated. In animals, sites of methylation are modified at CpG sites (residues). Genetic control of methylation of adenine (A) and cytosine (C) (nucleotides present in DNA) is affected by genes in bacterial and mammalian species. In plants, however, methyl moieties exist in the sequence CXG, where X can be A, C or T, where C is the methylated residue. Inactivation due to methylation of A is not known in plants, particularly within GATC sites known to be methylated in other systems.
Although there is no suggestion in the art that methylation might be induced in tissues specifically or otherwise, to achieve a desired end in a transgenic plant, it was known in the art that promoter methylation can cause gene inactivation, and alter the phenotype in transgenic organisms.
Envisioning directed methylation as a means for control of plant development, for example, to effect male sterility, would be discouraged by difficulties anticipated in using expression of a gene that has a generalized inactivating effect in a ubiquitous target, e.g., a methylase gene such as the E. coli DNA adenine methylase (DAM) for which GATC is a target, as a means to control a specific developmental step without otherwise deleteriously affecting the plant. The DAM target exists in many promoters, therefore, a problem of maintaining plant viability would be expected from inactivating promoters and/or genes that are crucial for cell viability. Unless there was a way to "compartmentalize" methylation introduced into a host system by an exogenous vector, methylation as an approach to producing male sterility by genetic means would not be expected to succeed. The present invention provides methods and compositions to compartmentalize and to manipulate genes such as DAM to effect changes in plant development.